After She Was Gone
by sweetprincipale
Summary: A one shot set in an AU after season five. Buffy didn't fall from the tower fighting Glory, Willow did. The world changes when anyone leaves it. What's it like for those who loved Willow best, now living in a world after Willow is gone?


** After She Was Gone**

**Sweetprincipale**

_AU after season five. Buffy didn't fall from the tower fighting Glory, Willow did. The world changes when anyone leaves it. What's it like for those who loved her best, now living in a world where Willow is gone? _

_Author's note: Please be kind in your reviews- I've never ever written anything like this, or used Oz as a main character. Thank you so much. _

_Dedicated to Omslagspapper, who requested a Tara/Oz ficlet in exchange for all the masterfully amazing work she's done on my book covers._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.**_

* * *

It's a grave that says her name, and the word "Beloved", because they couldn't decide what to put after that one word. Friend, lover, daughter, sister, soul mate, everything? So it's just "Beloved".

_It wasn't supposed to be her. It wasn't supposed to be any of them. In the movies, the hero doesn't die, the best friends don't die. The quirky but lovable new people go. Like me. I should go. _

Tara wiped her hair from her eyes, blowing long and wispy in the breeze that danced across the cemetery. Tears stopped falling days ago, leaving her, months later, in a silent shadow, a golden haired, hollow eyed specter who couldn't slip back into the groove of her own life. It didn't feel like her life anymore, though so many of the pieces tried to stay the same.

They were kind. The best friends who mourned the loss that felt like one third of themselves. They tried to pull her into the triangle, to support and be supported. The gestures weren't hollow, but she was, and even in her innate kindness, she flitted away.

Then there was the sweet adoring young teen who needed a mother figure to comfort her and tell her it would hurt less, and at the same time, to try so hard to be "brave for Willow" and comfort her other half. She couldn't be comforted.

The ex-demon who hated death with all the passion of her former demonic glory, who ever since Joyce died, treated mortality as her personal enemy. She was the anger, stuck in the grieving stage that never moved forward, and offered her an ear to vent. She never took it.

The quiet Englishman who seemed almost - unable to function- in his grief. Where was the fighting spirit, the stolid reserve? Shattered, openly crying, clinging to all of them like he'd lost a child. Because he had. He was afraid to lose anymore. She clung back, but no matter how hard they held onto each other, her arms always felt so empty.

Even the vampire tried. The skulking, sulking vampire, who seemed to hold up Buffy in _her_ trials, offered to hold her up as well. Not in the same way of course, but in the casually offered flask and cigarettes, the silent single embrace at a graveside, the eyes on the back of her shoulders as he made sure she got home safely, night after night, after night. To make sure she wasn't disturbed as she held her nightly vigils by this small space of earth that held an entire lost world.

"They don't get it, do they?"

Tara spun and toppled, hands on the stone she touched so longingly, so often. "Who-?" The words died away. Unneeded. "Oz."

"I didn't find out right away." His voice shook. "I went back to Tibet. Kinda spaced. Forgot to check in. For- a year... I think." He stepped forward. "I came to town. Saw them. They tried to explain... But they don't get it."

She might have been scared if she had the possibility of having something worse happen to her, something left to fear. What can you be afraid of after your heart is torn from you and they bury the only thing that could ever restore it?

Still, the last time they'd met, the only time they'd met, it hadn't been good at all. She kept close to the tangible presence, the piece of marble that represented her solid rock. "You h-heard."

"I heard." He came closer to her, but not in a threatening manner. "I didn't want to believe it... You never-"

"Think it'll be her?"

They didn't know each other at all, but the one who connected them seemed to create an instant bond. They finished each other's thoughts with almost uncanny ability.

"She's been hurt, kidnapped, chased by vampires and werewolves, and she just kept coming back for more."

"Braver than anyone knew." Tara whispered, moving aside, let him run his pale fingers over the carved letters, a gesture she knew so well. She wondered if he'd do more.

He did, leaning forward, head to it, lips to the cold stone. Something so private, but you would do it in front of a million people, because you had to. Had to, a physical urge like breathing. She'd done it herself, with much more desperation.

_But not him. He was always really cool, laid back, that's what Willow said. _

_ She also said she was the one thing that brought out the wolf inside of him._

* * *

His shoulders rolled, flexed, then shook. "No... No. No, no, _no_."

A scream, a snarl, a flash of fur, a slash of rage, claws cut through the earth like he would unbury these bones, and have his girl back beside him again.

"Oz! Stop that!" She rushed forward and grabbed the slavering beast by the hide.

He turned with a howl, of pain, of fury , that just died away when he saw her tears.

"I miss her too! I miss her too."

* * *

You don't hug werewolves. They'll tear your face apart, leaving you bleeding in your own shredded organs, and if they don't, they'll infect you, make you one of theirs. Unless of course you're a beast who has a shred of control, mixed with one who's in so much pain. Who can smell the power, and the grief, in the human stupid enough and desperate enough to collapse against your fur covered inhuman chest and just sob, clearly showing live or die, it doesn't matter anymore, not without them.

Something he could relate to.

He transformed back, clothes somewhat strained and shredded, eyes not black, but red rimmed. He hadn't known werewolves could cry.

"I tried to protect her- she went up after D-Dawn, and Spike... B-Buffy was there. We a-all were there, but Glory-"

"She's the one?" His arms tightened around her back, her tear stained face looking up, then dropping down, as if her words were a guilty confession.

"She's dead now. Died that night. It didn't matter. Willow already fell. She- fell." Such a simple word, a simple action. _We all fall, trip and fall, fall off a bike, a horse, fall down a flight stairs... fall in love... fall from the sky and crack the pavement underneath a rickety tower made out of metal and madness._

"Good." _Good the bitch is dead, so I don't kill her. I'm not a killer. I left her so I wouldn't become a killer. _The rest of what followed after, what might have happened, should have been, prices paid- that was a tangle that he left alone in an already overburdened mind.

"I'm sorry." She whispered.

"Me, too."

"I- n-never meant to take her away from you. Honest. _Honest_." Happy she'd chosen her, but sad for the man left behind. Who wouldn't want to be Willow's?

"I shouldn't have left."

"Y-you had to."

He stared. "You get that?" _So fast?_

"To help yourself get in control. So you wouldn't hurt her. I- I would do anything n-not to hurt her. I-" _Lied. Bewitched. Hid. So I didn't hurt her. Honesty was better. She loved me anyway._ "She would have loved you anyway."

"I know." Some of the knots untangled, but the thoughts were no less painful._ That hurts the worst. Knowing you screwed up._

* * *

Why hadn't she gotten back up? She still hugged, he still held. A mental signal of "This feels wrong" was quickly bypassed by, "This feels right. The right thing to do. To help this person who feels my pain. No one else can feel it this deep, this knife inside."

"I love her." Oz said very quietly, very simply. _Love. Not loved. Never had loved anyone else. _

"I love her, too." _Love, not loved. I'll never stop loving my Willow. _

"She loved you." His hand lifted her chin.

"And you." Her hand patted his arm.

"I - never knew- pain like this- existed." He spoke slowly, brows knitting, head tilting.

"They say it gets less, but-" Tara shook her head, no comfort, no false comfort here.

"It's been five weeks since I heard. It's not less."

"It's been five months. It'll never be less." She whispered despairingly but with surety.

"I don't think this kind of pain stops." The musician who used an economy of words summed everything up so simply. "Like... it wouldn't be physically possible. I mean- you have one heart. You give someone half-"

"You lose them, you lose the half. You never get it back."

_Unless you find the person with a missing half, and two halves... must make _something _whole._

* * *

It was on the grass, not out of her sight, but in it, silently saying, "We're not ashamed. We're hurting. Please, _please_ make the pain stop. You made us better once, make us better again."

* * *

His kisses were hungry, her soft hands were hard, digging into his shoulders, as she pulled him in deep, body unused to the intrusion.

She cried, he smoothed her cheek. He bowed his head, she pillowed him on an aching heart.

Fistfuls of chill grass under clenched hands, churned earth under skidding shoes, and silence. Silence except for tears, gasps, and labored grunts as they peaked without true pleasure.

Then they lay there, side by side, backs to the ground, watching the sun light up the sky that now seemed permanently dark to them.

"It didn't work."

"It was worth a try."

Hands clasped briefly, reassuringly, silently stating that there had been no harm in the attempt. In the near distance, a small smooth stone watched hands release, two people drifting apart, some small solace in knowing that somewhere, someone understood what it was like after she was gone.


End file.
